My final year of training began and it was some of the hardest things I had ever done. I was exhausted practically every night and barely spent any time in the pig-sty that I and three other people shared. The three soldiers couldn't understand why they could never touch my bunk while I wasn't there, or bother me while I slept there. They tried to prank me, their new roommate, and I didn't want anything to do with them.

Even exhausted, I could still create energy boxes to cover the bed and myself and used external Presence to make them solid. Since they were invisible unless you could detect the flow of Presence, the solders were completely clueless about what I was doing. I had hoped that I could learn from them; but, they were too stupid to learn anything useful from, so I focused on my training.

About halfway through the year, they finally introduced us to The Order's primary weapon. The Light sword. They brought in several Order members to instruct us on its proper use. A lot of it was classroom materials about how the weapon artificially created an intense energy field that focused absurd amounts of Presence inside it. Of course, I felt stupid that first day and raised my hand.

“Yes, Ullir?” The teacher asked.

“If the design and application is so easy, can't anyone make them and use them?” I asked, and everyone in the class laughed, including the members of The Order.

“Congratulations! For impressing me with such a blatantly stupid question, I'm assigning you to write a report on the importance of regulating the use, mining, and gathering of focusing crystals from the holy sites.”

“But...”

“They only exist on specific planets in the universe.” The teacher said. “The Order has declared them holy sites and only so many crystals are mined and dispersed to those that need them.”

“Why?”

“It's very, very difficult to mine them.” One of The Order members said. “The danger of them releasing their stored energy is...” He smiled. “The last time someone wasn't careful with a mining pick and struck an untreated crystal, there wasn't anything left of them or of the thirty feet around them.”

“Well, you'll learn all about that as you write that report.” My teacher said. “See me after class and I'll give you a few reference books.”

I didn't protest like I usually did, since I was actually interested in the subject. What I hated was that the teacher always wanted three to five thousand words.

“So, with that out of the way, these are the general components for...” The teacher started the holoprojector and I watched in fascination as my prediction of it being very simple to construct was right on the money. The components were laughably easy to find and assemble, and even the lenses could be scavenged from any standard recording device and in some cases from a droid's eye socket. The only strictly regulated component was the power crystal, and you couldn't just go to the local market and buy them.

The Order owned or controlled them all.

Of course they do. I thought as the presentation went on, then one of The Order members stepped to the front of the room and pulled the weapon from his hip and activated it. The low hum was accompanied by the appearance of a three foot long glowing blue blade.

“This isn't sharp in the general sense.” The man said. “It doesn't really burn, either.”

Of course it doesn't. I thought. It's energy. All matter is a form of energy. Since the Presence is in all things, including both matter and energy, using a Light sword disrupts both matter and energy.

I kept my thoughts to myself this time, though.

The lesson went on and we were shown a practical demonstration of the Light sword's use. The Order member used it to cut cloth and to burn through a small chunk of metal, which completely countered his argument that it didn't really cut or burn. I didn't correct him or bring up the contradiction, and then the other member of The Order stepped forward. They had a mock fight using the Light swords, and everyone was in awe of them. Except me.

I could see them not using any of their abilities to enhance their fight, or to counter some of their opponent's moves. They weren't even using body reinforcement when they blocked and countered. I could see the intense concentration of Presence around the Light swords and when they clashed, they released a small amount of Presence that neither fighter tried to manipulate or even absorb back into their swords or personal Presence flows.

In a long and drawn-out battle, that would be detrimental for a fighter to constantly wear away their Presence and let it go like that. I thought.

The mock fight came to an end when one of them pretended to stab the other in the gut.

“So, would anyone like to try...”

“When can we build our own weapons?” I asked, and everyone in the room turned to look at me.

“After you learn everything about the theory behind the...”

“What if you already know all of the theory?” I asked.

“Congratulations! For amusing me with yet another stupid question, you can write a report on all of the theories on Light swords, including their creation by the first beings, and how society has advanced since they appeared.” My teacher said.

“Do you want me to submit it now or later?” I asked and held up my datapad.

“Excuse me?”

“I've been saving that report since the year began.” I said and hit the send button. The teacher's datapad beeped at him and he looked at it with wide eyes.

“Oh.”

“So, when can we make our own weapons?” I asked again.

“Not until the end of the year.” The teacher said and quickly skimmed through my report. “Ullir, did you... are these your ideas?”

“Once I understood the principles, a lot of possibilities occurred to me.” I said. I didn't put them all in the report, though.

“This is really good.” The teacher said. “When you see me after class to get those reference materials, I want you to stick around for a while.”

“I'd like to, but I'm busy.” I said, and he looked up from his datapad and looked at me. “They're doing basic training at the barracks and are going out on an overnight excursion.”

“You're not part of the military.” He said.

“I'm not; but, they are locking down the barracks before they leave. If I'm not inside...”

“I see.” The teacher said. “Perhaps tomorrow, then.”

“That's the weekend.” I said with a slight smile.

He didn't respond and one of the members of The Order held up his light sword.

“Who wants to try using this.”

“No, thanks.” I said loudly, and once again, everyone looked at me. “There's a reason the weapons are made personally.” I explained. “You tune it to your own flow of Presence to allow you to use it without hurting yourself. I'm not going to risk using someone else's Light sword and risk hurting myself or damaging the sword.”

Once the other students heard that, none of them wanted to try it, despite really wanting to.

“Well!” The teacher said with more enthusiasm than was necessary. “This was a great lesson, wasn't it?”

None of us responded, so he called an end to the class and waved me over to his desk. He handed me three books and told me that I had a week to do the report on mining the focus crystals and their impact on society. I could feel the two members of The Order were staring at me, so I ignored them and left. I went to my room and laid down on the bed, and focused the flow of Presence through the three books, one at a time, and read them without opening them.

I had to use several different mental techniques to do it, and as I read them, I used a datapad to write the report. It only took three hours to complete it, then I put the books and the datapad aside and went to sleep. I had blocked out all the noise and hubbub when the soldiers left for their mission, and didn't wake up until the next morning. They came back and I ignored them again, waited until I had to get up, then left my room and went to class.

I passed in both the report and the three books the teacher had lent me, and he just stared at his datapad. He tried to ask me how I had written it so quickly; but, I ignored him and he moved on to teach us more about the different weapons and technology that we could encounter when off-world and facing enemies that were out to hurt us.

I kept my opinion about The Order being the enemy to myself. People needed to be afraid of them and their power; but, now wasn't the time to make a stand about that. I was much too young and weak to do anything about it at the moment. I was going to need a lot more training and power to deal with an organization that spanned countless worlds. I smiled because I didn't believe that was an insurmountable task.

The day passed, then the week, then a month and another, and before I knew it, the entire year was over. It had passed by like a fever dream full of sweat and blood. The other students had taken it upon themselves to teach me that I could be beaten in a fight by someone more experienced; but, that didn't mean that I was beaten as a person. It wasn't a hard lesson for me to learn, since all it did was remind me of my previous life and everything I went through there.

Thankfully, I didn't have to die this time.

On my twelfth birthday, I went to the same testing room that I went to every year on my birthday. It hadn't changed in all the years I had been going there. I performed all the little monkey tricks that they asked of me, then for the first time a droid came out. I was both curious and worried for a second, until it took a fighting stance. I laughed out loud at the absurdity instead of keeping it to myself, and I saw the observers reactions.

“Begin.” The woman's voice said, and the droid lunged at me lightning fast.

I caught it with my Presence Hand and held it steady, then examined it closely. I knew there was a reason they had given me this chance, and when I concentrated on the chest, I saw that it was heavily shielded and was covered in a stun field.

“Oh, sneaky.” I said and used Presence to reverse the energy flow and popped the stun charge mechanism. The stun field faded and I used another Presence Hand to pull off the metal covering. I concentrated and used another hand to grab the front of the thick shield. It seemed like a solid block of metal, which I knew was a deception, so I crushed the front of it and ripped it open.

Inside was a focusing crystal.

“You couldn't just give me the parts I needed?” I asked, then laughed again. “Actually, I guess you just did.” I said and popped the crystal out of the holder. The robot wasn't powered by that, though. I concentrated and followed the robot's flow of Presence and found its battery packs and used a small Presence Hand to pull the wired leads to it. The droid shut down and stopped moving, so I lowered it to the floor and went over in my head what components I would need.

I didn't have any tools with me, which is something they must have expected. I was tempted to open the closet and see if they would have a small toolkit inside, then chuckled. I had been using Presence to open things since I was five, so I used it again to completely dismantle the droid. It took a while to open up everything and my focus was sharp and intense as I unscrewed every bolt and crushed every rivet.

*

“His test is taking twice as long as the others.” One of the aliens asked. “What in the world is he doing?”

“Showing off.” The woman said and sighed. “He's letting us see that he doesn't need the toolkit we left in the closet that he knows is there.”

“What?” The alien looked down at his monitor to get a close up view of what was happening, and shook his head. “Why is he... hey! He's crushing the rivets in the plating!”

The Wise One chuckled by making a coughing sound. “Yes, he is definitely showing off.”

The four observers watched, kind of in awe, as their reluctant student completely dismantled the droid, right down to individual wires. Once he had everything spread out, he quickly chose the right components that were needed to create a standard weapon for a member of The Order.

*

I used one of the spindly arms of the droid for the casing, then used both my fingers and Presence to put all of the components together into the proper configuration and slid the whole thing into the cylinder. I didn't bother with trying to add an external switch or power regulator knob, since this was only a test. I could almost feel their surprise as I skipped that step and stopped myself from smiling.

I had taken my time with assembling it, because I had been using my own flow of Presence to attune the components to myself. If I hadn't, it really would have been dangerous for me to try and operate it without the proper safety precautions. I had even adjusted the power regulator for minimal output so that when I turned it on, it wouldn't blow one or both of the clear lenses that I had set to direct the focusing crystal's power.

I used several small screws to secure everything and I was done. I stood up and held the weapon out in my hand, and I let my flow of Presence enter it. It felt like it was a part of my hand, and this time I didn't stop my smile as it spread across my face. The viewing window appeared in the wall and I turned my head to see the woman that had been the head of the committee that had assessed me every year.

“Congratulations, Ullir. You've completed your training.” The woman said. “I don't know how you're going to activate your weapon without a switch.”

I grinned at her as I used Presence to flip the internal switch, and a one foot long blue energy blade came out. It was only one inch wide, and I saw surprise on all of their faces.

“It has both a switch and a regulator.” I said and used Presence to turn the regulator up to the standard setting and the blue energy blade extended out to three feet long and widened to three inches. “I left them internal, so that only someone attuned to it could activate it and control the settings.”

“Very good. Very good.” The Wise One said and clapped its two forelegs together and the claws made a clacking sound. “I knew you had it in you to complete the training to our satisfaction.”

“That's where you're wrong, oh Wise One.” I said and deactivated the weapon and hung it on my belt. “I completed the training to MY satisfaction.”

The Wise One coughed several times as it chuckled. “Yes, that would be a distinct difference.”

“So, now what?” I asked. “What happens to me now?”

“Usually when a student completes their training, they are of age and can be inducted into The Order.” The woman said. “Unfortunately, you won't be of age for another four years.”

“And?” I looked from her to the Wise One. “What does that mean for me?”

“Unless you can find a master that will take you, you will have to wait until you are of age before...”

“I don't want a master.” I said. “I've been sick of having to follow all of your stupid rules since I've been here. I will not subject myself to being a toady for some arrogant Order flunky.”

The woman turned to the Wise One. “What does 'toady' and 'flunky' mean?”

“I have not heard the terms before; but from the connotations, I believe toady means a submissive person and flunky means an underling that follows orders without questioning them.”

“I guess that's why they call you the Wise One, oh Wise One.” I said, and the Wise One chuckled.

“I do have my moments.”

“So, since I've completed my training, I qualify as an adult.” I said and looked at their faces. “Since I'm not of age, I can't work for you and I can't leave on my own.” I saw several nods. “I guess this means I'm in limbo.”

“In limbo.” The Wise One said, and nodded. “Yes, you are in limbo. A transition phase between being a child and becoming an adult.” He chuckled. “We will still assign you various tasks to complete, since you are still under our authority. I hope you won't be too much of a bother while you wait to grow up.”

“Oh, you don't have anything to worry about.” I said. “I'm going to be a perfect angel.”

“That's a relief.” The woman said.

“By the way, can I have my belongings back?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, there are still regulations against...”

“I didn't think so.” I said as I let a smile spread across my face and gave her a little wave. “Buh-bye!” I said happily, opened the room's door, and stepped out into the hallway.

“I... have a bad feeling about this.” The woman said.

I barked a laugh, activated my Light sword as I stepped back into the room, then jumped up to jam it into the fire detection sensor on the ceiling.

BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!

The alarm wailed and I stepped back out of the room just in time.

“By the Goddess!” The woman exclaimed as she and the other people in the room were covered in fire suppression foam. “Get back here, you!”

I laughed at the top of my lungs as I covered myself in Presence and ran.